Why is Labour picking on pensioners?
Funding the Future
Why is Labour picking on pensioners?
In this morning
 Of all the groups in society anyone expected Labour to pick on when it came into office, pensioners were the least likely, excepting, perhaps, children in poverty. Now it turns out they are the two groups Labour thinks should pay the price for the mess that Labour claims it has inherited from the Tories. Political incompetence on this scale is hard to make up.
The House of Lords really does not understand what they call the ‘national debt’
Funding the Future
The House of Lords really does not understand what they call the ‘national debt’
The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee has published a report today. They concluded: The Government must overhaul the existing fiscal frame...
 The House of Lords is panicking about the national debt, but that‘s what happens when you fundamentally misunderstand what it supposedly is, as they do. It’s just a savings facility on which the government is not dependent. Of course there is nothing to panic about in that case.
If Rachel Reeves wants more money, she needs to crack down on small business tax evasion
Funding the Future
If Rachel Reeves wants more money she needs to crack down on small business tax evasion
The National Audit Office (NAO) published a report this morning that says: The UK is losing billions of pounds a year in revenue due to tax evasio...
 The National Audit Office has issued a report today replicating almost exactly a lot of what I had to say on HMRC, its lack of organisation and its resulting failure to tackle the small business tax gap in the Taxing Wealth Report 2024. It's good to see. But will the government act?
They’re not going
Funding the Future
They’re not going
I noted yesterday a report from an estate agent saying one in six UK millionaires is going to leave the country ver the next few years. Then, I ...
 The wealthy aren't going anywhere - as the bankers obviously know.
Labour, critical thinking, and migration
Funding the Future
Labour, critical thinking, and migration
I spent a lot of time last Friday discussing how we can get accounting undergraduates to do critical thinking when many would rather not do so. ...
 I am frustrated by the Labour party's failure to engage in critical thinking. Critical thinking is questioning and evaluating information to form reliable judgments. Labour is nowhere near doing that.
Why the rich aren’t leaving, or coming, to the UK
Funding the Future
Why the rich aren’t leaving, or coming, to the UK
I was on the Matthew Wright show on LBC Radio this morning. I seem to be becoming a bit of a regular on this gig at the moment. The subject was...
 An estate agent has said one in six millionaires might be leaving the UK, and no one will come to replace them. They're wrong about those leaving: most millionaires are going nowhere. They're right about how unattractive we now are to the rich.
Wes Streeting: the undertaker to the NHS
Funding the Future
Wes Streeting: the undertaker to the NHS
Wes Streeting was being his usual self this weekend when talking without any obvious comprehension of the meaning of what he was saying at the Fina...
 Wes Streeting has been talking about existential threats to the NHS this weekend without showing the slightest comprehension of the fact that his own highly likely inaction on the underlying causes of ill health will be what brings it to its knees.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland need better powers to tax
Funding the Future
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland need better powers to tax
In this morning
 The UK's devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland need proper powers to tax, or they will always be governing with one arm tied behind their backs. Without such powers, a devolved government is a sham, and so too is the so-called United Kingdom.
Do we need any more public inquiries?
Funding the Future
Do we need any more public inquiries?
The Grenfell Inquiry has now reported seven years after the fire, the causes of which it investigated. With the greatest of respect to the judge...
 When public inquiries take seven years to report and delay justice for up to a decade whilst telling us what we already know, which ministers could have admitted at the time, what is their purpose?
Neoliberalism was the underlying cause of the Grenfell disaster
Funding the Future
Neoliberalism was the underlying cause of the Grenfell disaster
Musing on what to say about the Grenfell inquiry has been quite hard. Nothing anyone can say can take away the trauma of what happened seven years ...
 Only by ridding our politics of neoliberal thinking will we eliminate the risk of another Grenfell happening, but what is the likelihood of that happening when most of our politicians are corrupted by that thinking?